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From T. H. Huxley 15 January 1865

26 Abbey Place

Jany 15. 1865

My dear Darwin

Many thanks for Deslongchamps paper which I do not possess.1

I received another important publication yesterday morning in the shape of a small but hearty son,2 who came to light a little before six— The wife3 is getting on capitally and we are both greatly rejoiced at having another boy as your godson ran great risks of being spoiled by a harem of sisters4

I hope this will be the last for I really cannot afford any more—boys or girls5

The leader in the ‘Reader’ is mine & I am glad you liked it6—the more so as it has got me into trouble with some of my friends— However the revolution that is going on is not to be made with rose water

I wish if anything occurs to you that would improve the scientific part of the Reader you would let me know as I am, in great measure, responsible for it—7

I am sorry not to have a better account of your health—8

With kind remembrances to Mrs Darwin9 & the rest of your circle

Ever Yours faithy | T H Huxley

Footnotes

Huxley probably refers to Jacques-Armand Eudes-Deslongchamps, a French palaeontologist who specialised in marine invertebrates and reptiles (Sarjeant 1980–96). The paper that Huxley received may have been Eudes-Deslongchamps 1842, an essay on monstrous appendages in pigs that CD cited in Variation 1: 75–6. CD was revising the chapters on domestic animals for Variation (see ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 13, Appendix II)). No previous reference to the paper has been found.

Leonard, Huxley’s second son and CD’s godson, was born in 1860. The daughters were Jessie (born 1858), Marian (born 1859), Rachel (born 1862), and Nettie (born 1863). Huxley’s first son, Noel, had died in 1860 (Clark 1968, pp. 376–7).